How do the picture elements form an integrated whole? (e.g. similarities/contrasts, regularity/irregularity, symmetry/asymmetry, perspective and translating three dimensions into two).

What does the image point out? (e.g. prominence, figure/ground).

How realistically are ideas or information are depicted in the image? (e.g. naturalistic or realistic depictions of concrete things versus caricature; sketch or diagram versus iconic or abstract representation of ideas or feelings).

How are images chained? (e.g. in an exhibition, a comic, the pictures in a children’s storybook, a slideshow, a video).

How do media shape the image? (e.g. production and reproduction materials and technologies: brushstrokes in a painting, lines in a drawing, the viewfinder of a camera).

CONTEXT

How are the meanings shaped by where they are situated?

What is the location of the image, how does it point to its surroundings, and how do its surroundings point to it? (e.g. the painting in the gallery, the map in the travel guidebook book).

What visual references does the image use:

to things in the world? (e.g. visual analogies, metaphors, imagery)

to other images?(e.g. style conventions, motifs from other images, remixing, collage).

What is the genre of the image, or similarities with a type or style or method of image making? (e.g. abstract expressionist painting, documentary film making).

PURPOSE

Whose interests do these meanings serve?

What is the position of the image maker?

What is the stance of the image-maker? (e.g. foregrounding-backgrounding, how the image is designed to make its point).

What has the image maker included and excluded? (e.g. framing and perspective that includes some things and leaves other things out, selective presentation of visual information).

Whose interestsdoes the image support? (e.g. an advertiser selling something or a scientist trying to persuade using a diagram depicting scientific facts).

What is the position of the viewer?

How does the image maker attempt to engage or get the attention of the viewer? (e.g. where the viewers might be when they see the image, what they might be expected to notice first, the mental images they may be expected to bring to the image).

Where is the viewer placed (e.g. power perspectives such as looking up/looking down, appearances of objectivity and truth claims in the form of direct frontal or perpendicular views such as plans and plans).

What interpretation does the image suggest for the viewer? (e.g. the positioning of the viewer, things constructed as more/less salient, the purpose or argument of the image).